


Voices of the Dead

by mitslits



Series: Return to the Citadel [5]
Category: Mad Max Fury road, Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Warning: mentions of abortion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 14:10:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4022785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/pseuds/mitslits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furiosa has her own past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices of the Dead

She is fourteen and curling up next to her mother as the desert sun slowly sinks below the horizon. They hear the distant rumble of wheels, but the sound is not unfamiliar and they pay it little attention. Only hours later, they will regret this. 

Furiosa wakes to the sound of revving engines, much closer now than they were before. She is frozen in horror as a caravan of vehicles, ghost men swarming over them, encircles her and her mother. Her mother jumps to her feet, pushing Furiosa behind her as a large man with a horrifying mask stalks over to them. 

His eyes linger on them for only a few seconds before he turns away. "Take the girl. Kill the woman."

She shrieks as some of the ghost men tear her away from her mother, arms and legs flailing wildly as she strikes out. One of the men curses as her nails rake over his face and his grip loosens, but it is far from enough to allow her escape. A crowd of the men gather around her mother and the last she sees of her is a panicked face, hands clawing the air as they try to reach her daughter. 

The last she hears of her is a scream. Then her world is only the ghost men and the rumble of engines, the desert sands whipping past them as they head towards a place Furiosa will never consider home. 

*

She is fifteen and watching her belly swell as the baby the Immortan has put in it grows. She pushes her child into the world through pain, and blood, and sweat and, when it is finally placed in her arms, feels that she can survive. 

Three months later the Immortan seizes it from her, forces her to watch as he smashes its head against the rocks. This is what happens, he warns her, when she gives him daughters. He gives her the corpse to bury. 

She digs the grave out with her hands, tears turning the dirt to mud as she lays the body (too small, far too small) in the shallow hole. 

It is the last time she cries. 

*

She is seventeen and attempting to escape a life she never wanted to lead. 

The Immortan sends out the War Boys to retrieve her with strict orders not to see her injured. The sight of them in the rearview mirror of the car she has stolen makes her next choice an easy one. 

Furiosa twists the wheel sharply, driving the car up the side of a cliff. It flips wildly and she closes her eyes, waits for death to claim her. Seconds later her world is fire.

When she next wakes, she doesn't have an arm. 

*

She is eighteen and no longer one of the Immortan's wives. Three miscarriages have proven her ill-suited to be a Breeder. The Immortan will never know that thrice Furiosa stole a tube meant for a bloodbag and turned her own baby to blood. 

She has proven herself useful in other areas. The mechanics have come to know her as she picked over their spare parts, forming them into an arm to replace the one she has lost. She knows her way around a vehicle. 

It is easy to lose herself in gears and guzzoline. 

*

She is twenty and watching as the Immortan builds a collection of young girls, so much like herself. She finds excuses to know them, earning her way into their hearts and their heads, filling their minds with stories of the Green Place she once knew, one where there were Many Mothers. 

With hope shining in their eyes they listen to the strange woman with no hair and a metal arm, unaware that they have taken her place. 

As the months wear on, their hope dulls. 

*

She is twenty three and being given her own War Rig. She found the wreckage, hauled it back to the Citadel, reassembled it piece by piece. She knows every inch of the machine. She knows how to override the kill switch. She knows about the bone knife hidden in the gearshift. She knows about the secret hold she has built to help the young girls who seem younger with each passing day. 

The War Rig is hers. Her planning begins. 

*

She is twenty seven and watching one of the young girls emerge as the Immortan's favorite. 

Her heart twists in sympathy. 

* 

She is thirty and her plans are finished. She looks for an opportunity to tell the wives, but they are jealously guarded and she is left frustrated at every turn. 

*  
She is thirty three and finally gets to the wives. She tells them of the secret hold in her War Rig. She reminds them of the Green Place. 

They are only too eager to go.

*

She is thirty four and knows they can wait no longer. She has watched the favorite's stomach swell as hers once did and heard her words. 

'We are not things.' 

She steals them from under the Immortan's nose and stamps down the thrills of satisfaction that run through her. They are not away yet. 

She is thirty four, twenty years gone from the last time she has seen the Green Place. She remembers the way perfectly.

**Author's Note:**

> I took Furiosa's present age from the wiki which said she'd been gone from the Many Mothers for approximately 20 years. 
> 
> For those of you confused about the method Furiosa used to induce a miscarriage, an older practice was to insert a tube into the uterus and either attempt to suck the fetus out or blow air into the uterus to force a miscarriage. I don't know how successful that method actually was, but I do know the practice is highly unsafe and should never actually be attempted.


End file.
